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Cobra Vong?

Cobra-Vong?

Okay, I was waiting for someone else to mention this on a Star Wars website somewhere, but maybe I'm the first person to notice it. Hasn't anyone else seen a huge resemblence between the Yuuzhan Vong and the super bad-guys in a movie based on another of Hasbros 3 3/4" figure lines, G.I.Joe? There seem to be a lot of parallels. For those who haven't seen it, the animated G.I.Joe Movie actually never made it to theaters, and was sent straight to TV. It was a 90-minute animated adventure that introduced fans to new characters from the 1987 toy lineup, including several new Joes like Falcon, Jinx, the Renegades, and the new (but short-lived) super bad guys, Cobra-La. The story goes like this (parenthesis indicate New Jedi Order parallels):

The G.I.Joe army is fighting it's usual enemy, Cobra, when they stumble across a hidden nation in the romote fringes of the Himalayas, the "roof of the world" (Unknown Regions/Galactic Rim). This society, the Cobra-La (Yuuzhan Vong), bases its technology solely on genetic manipulation of living beings. It's ruler, Golobulus (Overlord Shimrra) wears crab plates on his chest (vonduum crab armor) and has various parts of his body replaced by implants, including his eye (plaeryin bol) and arm (radank claw) and is a snake from the waist down. He rides a floating chariot creature (dovin basal), and his society's army is made up of living creatures - bat-like fighter jets, huge worms for ground assault, squids for submarines, bugs/starfish/tentacled things for hand-to-hand combat (thud/razor bugs), spider bridges, crab carpets, and all the buidlings of Cobra-La are made of corral (yorrik corral) and molusks (grashals).

Years before they get ready to attack, Golobulus sends an emissary out into the world to raise and army and sow discord amongst the nations of the world - Cobra Commander (Nom Anor). He is, unfortunately, more interested in his own political gain and power than serving his ruler, and is fairly inept at leading battles but always manages to escape capture (again, Nom Anor). Cobra-La's armies are put under the command of a tactical genius, Serpentor (Warmaster Tsavong Lah), who is always at odds with Cobra Commander but never gets around to doing away with him. He fights in battle using snakes that he straightens and throws like spears to pierce his enemies hearts (amphistaffs). There is also a female leader/spy named Pythona who is humanlike and attractive (Elan) and has acid ducts under her claws. The goal of the Cobra-La nation is to dominate the humans, whose "non-living technology is a travesty of their own noble ways" (sound familiar?). They plan to accomplish this by releasing spores to mutate humans into mindless savages (coomb spores/corral implants), and enlist the Cobras (Peace Brigade), who are traitors to their own race, to help them, including the self-seving aristocrat-turned terrorist Baroness who spies on the Joes from in their midst (Viqi Shesh).

In order to combat them, the Joes bring in a group of super-trained soldiers, the Renegades (Jedi), one of whom, Falcon, was court-martialed out of the Joes for not following orders (Kyp Durron). One of the oldest members of the Joes is seriously wounded, but in the original script, like Optimus Prime in the Transformers movie, he died - but this was deemed too violent for TV cartoons and edited out (Chewbacca's death). The Joes don't understand the living technology they are facing, but manage to win the day anyway, thanks to their newest recruits, who do most of the fighting (new Jedi) alongside a few of the older veterans (old Jedi).

So did the originators of the New Jedi Order series, after being told by Lucas not to use an army of Dark Jedi (the original bad guys they came up with for the series), remember this animated flick and use it as a basis for their new bad guys, the Yuuzhan Vong? Well, now you know, and knowing is half the battle...

Originally posted by tgr3328 The movie came out in 1987. How long has the NJO series been around? The similarities sound like more than mere coincidence. One is obviously a rip-off of the other!

I knew it! Vindication rules! Back in '87 I was ALL OVER the message boards saying that the G.I.Joe movie was such a rip off of the New Jedi Order. Ooh; it feels sooooo good to be right!
BTW, you can spell these words from "Cobra-La:"
Crab Ola
Boa Larc
Boal Car
Cab Ralo
Oar Blac
LA or cab
Orb Laca